We Are Not Humanity
by Cherry Blossom
Summary: a poem


We are not humanity.

~*~*~*~*~

Don't look so shocked when I say this.

I'm not making stuff up just for my own amusement, I mean it.

We may be _humans_ but we are not _humanity_.

We are not the sum of everything up until now,

We are not what the entire world was made for.

This is not our garden,

It is a garden

We live in it

We do not own it.

~*~*~*~*~

We are not humanity.

Stop dropping your mouth open like you want to shout at me when I say this.

It's not a very difficult concept.

Nor is it something you couldn't have said to yourself in only Mother Culture would stop hissing in your ear,

Like so many snakes who tempted us

To go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep…

My people are not inherently wrong.

There is no error in their genes

That makes them predisposed to screw up

And there is no brand of evil

On their faces,

No Judas' kisses on their brows.

My people aren't wrong from the moment they are born.

They are merely capable.

Yes, we are capable of great good, great love, great intelligence, 

great kindness, great generosity, great greed, 

great evil, great hatred, great stupidity, great ignorance.

We are capable,

But it is not something that _just is_ and every time we show our capability to hate,

That is not a sign to throw up our hands and say,

"Well, that's just how it is. Humans are scum."

We are not predisposed to sin.

We are not predisposed to glory.

Whatever we are, we are not predisposed to anything, we just are.

~*~*~*~*~

That is not to say that our culture isn't doing something wrong right now.

In my city there is racial prejudice, 

religious intolerance, 

war, suffering, rape, murder, 

abuse after abuse after extensive abuse 

and as its excuse 

we find the age old refrain of,

"well what do you expect? That's humanity for you."

And we throw laws at the problem, first ten, then more because it was apparent that ten was not going to cover it.

And it isn't working, so we create a system of punishment. 

We build jails, we fill them, we rehabilitate, 

we build more jails, we execute, we pile the bodies up high, 

we create even more laws, we hide our head under the sand and peek up every so often and say "is it over yet? It is all gone now?" but it isn't so we duck back down.

Why? Why isn't it working? 

We have all the "thou shalt nots" and "thou musts" right here, 

we have all the punishments ready, 

we have hellfire underneath, 

we brought out the big guns and introduced an evil entity among us, 

we have told everybody the **_one right way to live_** so why isn't it working?

Humans must be inherently flawed.

~*~*~*~*~

Except (except except)

We are not humanity.

We think we are.

Everyone tells us we are.

But we are not humanity.

We are one culture

Enacting a story

That is inherently flawed.

Not humanity.

Not even our culture is flawed.

The story we are enacting is flawed

Because it presumes to tell us the **_one right way to live_**

And pushes this way on everyone.

~*~*~*~*~

For Christians, paradise will come when everyone lives exactly the same way.

For those who know that we are not humanity, paradise will come when everyone lives in a way that works for them, not because it is the **_one right way to live_** but because it actually works. 

Maybe Christian life is the best way to live right now,

But if we are to accept this, it cannot be because it was the only right way,

It has to be because it works.

Is it working? Are people less inclined to steal, to murder, to rape, to loot, to gossip, to hurt, to abuse? No? Then it's not working. Find another way. Find a way that works.

~*~*~*~*~

But that is a problem for us.

We gave ourselves no room for experimentation.

We set ourselves on a course for destruction 

and we _see_ the destruction 

and we _know_ that it isn't getting better 

and we _know_ that eventually we will burn out 

but we _have_ to keep doing things like this 

and thinking like this 

because it is the **_one right way to live_**

and we can't go back to the beginning and start again 

because that would be admitting that we were wrong.

That the whole start of civilization we built on was a mistake.

Can't be.

Keep peddling that flying machine into the sun, 

never mind the rocks, 

if we peddle hard enough we're sure to stop falling eventually. 

Of course there's nothing wrong with the machine, 

it's perfectly fine, 

it is the pilot who is flawed. 

~*~*~*~*~

We are not the pilot.

We are not humanity.

We are one culture.

China, Canada, Russia, England, Japan, France, America, Germany, Australia

We are one culture.

The culture of totalitarian agriculturists.

We are the tillers of the soil. 

We are Cain, brother of Abel.

"Then who are these people who are not our culture? Everyone farms. It is the **_one right way to live_**."

No. It's not. 

It is _a_ way to live. 

It is not _the_ way to live.

These people, not of our culture, are the hunter-gatherers, the non-totalitarian agriculturists, those who say, "I know not the right way to live for everybody. I know only the right way to live for me."

There were many once. We wipe them out whenever we can, for their ideas scare us.

~*~*~*~*~

Did you ever see a documentary,

On Discovery channel,

Where there are ancient ruins of cities,

Lovely tall structures and shrines,

Evidence of farming, and irrigation systems,

Language and literacy and mathematical genius,

But not a person in sight, nor the remains of one.

Like the whole city packed up and left,

Said, "this isn't the right way to live for us.

We don't like it here.

This isn't working."

And off they went, leaving everything behind, to try something new.

They could do this because the way of living they had tried was not **_the one right way to live_**

They didn't have to keep peddling on a machine that wouldn't fly.

~*~*~*~*~

We don't have to keep living a lifestyle that will kill us.

There is no reason to keep peddling until we hit the ground in painful conclusion.

We do not have the knowledge of good and evil inside us

Even though we ate the fruit.

Such foods were only made for Gods.

We do not know the **_one right way to live_** but we think we do

And we are dying for that way.

And we bringing the rest of humanity down with us.

We are not humanity.

But if we keep going the way that we are now,

We will cease to be anything at all,

Except a memory in this world.

For those who want to learn more…

http://www.ishmael.com/Education/Writings/southwestern.shtml


End file.
